Baby boom
We are in the middle of a baby boom. Just over 690,000 little ones popped out in England and Wales last year - 20,000 more than the year before and the highest number since 1991.
But this explosion of fecundity is different from previous booms, as new figures from the Office of National Statistics show (pdf link).
Compared with a decade earlier, British-born mums had 64,000 fewer babies last year. However, foreign-born mums had 64,000 more babies over the same period.
It is immigration which is pushing up the birth-rate in this country with almost a quarter (23%) of all the babies now delivered to foreign-born mothers - the highest ever proportion. In parts of London the figure rises to 74%.
Reading today's Healthcare Commission report (pdf link) on maternity services in England, I was surprised that so little was made of the impact immigration is having.
The authors reveal how some women giving birth are being admitted to units that do not have enough beds, showers or toilets. Consultants do not always spend enough time on the wards, not all staff receive adequate training and choice of where to give birth could be limited.
But what the Commission does not do is explain that these pressure points are very often in areas which have seen a jump in the birth rate locally because of a growing migrant population.
Where are the shortages of mid-wives? Chiefly in London and the South East, the areas which have experienced the most rapid changes in birth rate due to inward migration. It is here, too, that many maternity units have had to close temporarily because of unexpected demand.
For instance, in Slough where every other baby is now delivered to a mum born overseas, there have been hundreds of extra babies a year which doctors had not been expecting.
Last summer the local health trust was forced to take drastic action. The maternity unit in Ascot was shut for two months so they could move midwives to the Slough centre. The hospital explained the closure was due to an unprecedented 9% increase in the birth rate.
In terms of the experience of mothers, the three areas which scored worst are in parts of London with some of the highest proportions of foreign-born mothers.
In an appendix at the back of today's Healthcare Commission report the authors do say this:
"Overall, women from black and minority ethnic groups were more likely to access services late and less likely to have a scan at 20 weeks than women from the White British group. They were more likely to experience complications such as needing a hospital stay during pregnancy, having a longer stay in hospital after birth, and having their baby cared for in a neonatal unit. They responded more negatively to questions about care during labour and birth, and were less likely to say they had a choice about the place of birth."
Are we letting this vulnerable group of mothers down?
Philip Steer, editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and senior consultant at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, certainly thinks so.
"The major cause of maternal death is now heart disease", he tells me. "The incidence of heart disease causing maternal death has approximately trebled in the last 15 years and the great majority of those are occurring in women arriving in the country from overseas."
He also points out that almost one in 6 of mothers who died in the last three years had poor English.
The inquiry into the deaths of ten mothers at Northwick Park Hospital in North West London in 2006 also highlighted poor communication as a key factor (pdf link). Only one of the ten women who died was from a European background.
I fear some readers will see this post as some kind of attack on immigrants or immigration - blaming foreigners for putting a strain on maternity services. My intention is quite the opposite. I no more "blame" mothers from overseas for the pressure on midwives than I blame the elderly for putting pressure on social care.
But as Professor Steer put it to me: "If we're encouraging these people to come to the UK then we have an ethical duty to provide a proper standard of care."
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Professor Steer's comment in the last sentence misses the point. The majority of the foreign nationals referred to giving birth in our hospitals, certainly in London, are not encouraged to come to the UK but come to take advantage of our social services and live the easy life.
These people need to take responsibility for their own well being by learning some English. I am fed up of this country pandering to immigrants needs as if they take precedence over the indigenous population. The sooner we charge for their health care and refuse to hand out benefits to those unwilling to learn the language the better this country will be.
Better still close the borders and lets be selective on who we allow in.
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Better stop catering for the Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Normans, Anglo-Normans, Scots, Picts, Welsh and every other group as well then, since we're all immigrants from one time or another.
Great policy...
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I salute your bravery in raising this issue.
You express surprise that this issue is not mentioned in the report on maternity services.
To anyone who has worked for the public services it is not at all surprising: anyone who even mentioned this issue would be labelled as racist, their report would not be published and they would never be engaged by the DoH to write another report.
Although it is worrying that our maternity services are collapsing under certain pressures the more dangerous result of this has been the way in which a previously free nation has been subjected to opression to prevent any discussion of some government policies.
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""2. At 8:02pm on 10 Jul 2008, Luke_NI wrote:
Better stop catering for the Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Normans, Anglo-Normans, Scots, Picts, Welsh and every other group as well then, since we're all immigrants from one time or another.""
Yes, they've all been here for 1500 years .. that doesn't mean that we have turn existing population into a minority to foreigners in some many neighbourhoods up and down the country..
Immigration is happening too fast ... The problem is is that we are now "hooked" on migrant labour and its going to be difficult change it
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Worked fine for the Normans, otherwisewe wouldn't be here...
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I find this issue very interesting since I was born in England to a foreign-born mother. But the situation for me is rather different from the picture presented in the above article.
My mother is American, met my (British) father in America and came back to England and married him once his job moved over here. She has a high-powered academic job and perhaps because of this, no one would think of her as an "immigrant", even though of course she is.
"Immigrant" seems to have come to be a dirty word, for many people it apparently conjures up images of someone with coloured skin or perhaps now someone from Eastern Europe, who may not be able to speak good English, and who has very little money. This is a) racist and b) manifestly not always the case, and overlooks the number of foreigners who are hired for good jobs in England because they are better trained or more skilled than their English colleagues.
The maternity issue is not so much a question of immigration as a failure of the NHS to adapt to changing situations and to provide proper maternity care for all women. I suspect that if British nationals had suddenly started producing lots of children, the situation would be exactly the same. While immigration may have contributed to stretch further what was already an over-stretched NHS, it is not entirely the explanation.
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This report is really scary for a number of reasons.
First there is a serious cash flow problem. Foreign mums, for example those from Eastern Europe will be enjoying very high cost services *before* they've contributed anything like that much into the system. This will then be exacerbated if a recession happens and they decide to go home. Where is their contribution into the system then? Who is left to pick up the bill for their treatment? Or worse they may just stay and claim other benefits too.
Second, the numbers themselves are quite scary, even shocking. Fast forward 25 years and imagine what the situation is going to be like then. The government has turned a blind eye to the negative side of immigration (yes there is a positive side too) because it is effectively importing votes from poorer countries. It rubs its hand with glee everytime a non-English speaking, sometimes even illiterate, immigrant comes into the country - "there's another Labour state-dependent vote".
Third, it's putting a massive strain on resources. Even if the money was in the pot to pay for this it would take the services time to ramp up.
There is a positive side to immigration, as we do need to import certain skills, but immigration can only be a positive thing if it's MANAGED and governments over the last 40 years has miserably failed to do that. This latest report is just one example of the many failures in managing immigration.
This way is not sustainable and will lead to VERY serious problems further down the line.
The truth is nothing will change until we are beyond crisis point, then the government might actually start doing some of the things it should have done 20 years ago.
What I've realised is that we can't change it and nobody in this blog can change it either, no matter who you vote for. The damage is done and is irreversible.
The best vote you have is to vote with your feet. If you can't beat them, join them. I've become an immigrant (the other way though) and it's the best thing I ever did!
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With the information about how many non-Brits are giving birth here is there any breakdown on how many actually live here and how many are health tourists?
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As a statistics junkie I have noticed that the Office of National Statistics have been highlighting this for some time, and it has been picked up, albeit breifly, by papers such as the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, but ignored by papers such as the Guardian, possibly because the topic has been dismissed as Daily Mail scaremongering.
I have found that when I have raised this within political parties such as the Greens or the Lib Dems you are treated as if you have announced that you have just joined the BNP, which has prevented any kind of sensible debate on the issue. I see there are similar responses in the blog.
Oddly, this reaction tends to be from the younger members, who will be most effected in future years by the changes that are taking place.
I would also have thought that there must be a link between this and the growing housing shortage, but this does not appear to be being considered either. The parties that are least willing to consider the immigration issue tend to be the ones that are most concerned by the plans to build large number of houses both within and outside existing towns.
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Also...If almost 1 in 4 mothers were born outside the UK, then there may not be any significance in the fact that 1 in 6 mothers who died had poor English. In order to assess the significance we need to know what proportion of all mothers giving birth had poor English, and how close it is to 1 in 6.
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willowsacorns I couldnt agree more, you are spot on with your comments
Another reason for high statistics is unmarried mothers under the age of 16 - 18. It is astronomical how many teenagers "want a baby" and they do so without caring who pays for it or how they pay for it. Its down to the taxpayers again
The other point on ethnic minorities is in my opinion a lot to do with their faiths. A woman from these backgrounds is ruled by her husband or family and has to do as they say and her family dont care about ante-natal, pre-natal care, just to have more children. Not to mention they may also be illegal and dare not approach the NHS for help. And again its down to the taxpayer
I make no wonder that apathy rules in Britain and nobody cares any more, as a result of a government who gives to the rich, robs the taxpayer and panders to the immigrants. And to add insult to injury virtually bankrupts the NHS by their follies.
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To simply say "well the Normans did it" is quite daft. Consider the population size of Britain during that time, roughly 2 million people. Immigration would not have been a problem back then because we could afford it geographically for a start.
Now we have roughly 58 million people in the UK and we are soon to be bursting at the seams. It is not a case of discrimination it is simply a case of not being able to physically cope.
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My husband and I came from Eastern Europe 7 years ago and I recently had my first pregnancy assessment with a midwife. It struck me when she asked if they needed an interpreter for me. I don't think NHS should spend any money on immigrants who are here and don't even care to learn the language.
People who have been in this country for over a year and cannot speak English fluently are clearly here to take advantage of all the services in this country and they should be sent home. Or they should be treated as tourists and charged.
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